Achievement goal theory: A social-cognitive psychology theory that seeks to understand differences in achievement and concerns how different students and athletes are motivationally oriented. According to the theory, three interacting factors determine a person's motivation: achievement goals, perceived ability, and achievement behavior.

The text of this of this blog post is a transcript of the video talk presented here, which explores whether the word motivation is a misunderstood and overused word in fitness and strength training circles. Motivation is treated as if it is a black-and-white concept, and a person is either motivated or they are not motivated. It could be, however, that motivation is much more complex than this and the word used alone, without qualification, may be too vague, or too broad to be of much use.

I am in the process of transferring some old posts from the old "GUStrength's Blog" to here. This post was written in August 2009 and like many of the posts over there was never really seen. I think it is a good one and worth having more visibility, but I'll let you be the judge. It concerns a subject that we often discuss here at GUS, which comes down to the question of being a "task-oriented" or "outcome-oriented" person. This has been mentioned in numerous forum discussions and articles, so we must think it is a fairly important distinction. Here, I am trying to clear up just why that is.

Sometimes I get myself so busy with writing about how to strength train, getting all down and dirty with the technical stuff, that I forget something very important. The same thing with dispensing advice.

You see, something that I sometimes forget but that is always in the back of my brain is a sad fact: The majority of people who find my articles or ask my advice will not be training a year from now. Or even a few months from now. In fact, it is quite likely that one of my articles is the first and last thing they will ever read about strength training or any other kind of "fitness pursuit". And the same is true of anyone who does what I do.

Why do you strength train? Are you even clear on the reasons? Do they change from week to week? With so much emphasis on goals perhaps we are missing something even more fundamental and vital. Motivation. What good are goals when you are not even clear what motivates you to do what you do?

Part IV of Getting in the Zone described arousal regulation and the effects of anxiety and anger on performance. At the end of that post I left you with this:

"There are those who will need to focus on energizing techniques. Rather than controlling excessive arousal, they will need to develop strategies to increase arousal. But in my experience, most lifters have more of a need to control anxiety, apprehension, and anger, and thus regulate excessive arousal. Therefore the next post will focus on regulating over-arousal."